Birthday Skirt

Today is my birthday (Happy Birthday toooo meeeeee!). Bizarrely it is also my other half's birthday, oh and his twin sister's. So there is much birthday celebrating going on in my household this weekend. My brother and his lovely wife are coming to visit us and we are all going out for tapas. As I don't get out much, I wanted to dress up and feel pretty for our birthday dinner. So I have made myself a skirt! I am still shocked by this amazing feat, especially as I didn't have a pattern, so I made one myself. I don't start small do I?

This is the first skirt I have ever made. I may now know how to use a sewing machine but my clothes sewing skills are non existent. Before starting my skirt I spent a lot of time on the internet looking for patterns. A simple A Line skirt is obviously a rare pattern as I couldn't find one. I think it is because it is so easy most people who have tried clothes sewing know how to make one. So I looked for a tutorial instead. I found several:

http://sew-mad.blogspot.com/2007/03/basic-line-skirt-drafting.html (bit too straight for me)
http://www.craftstylish.com/item/33230/how-to-draft-a-one-seam-skirt-in-30-minutes.http
http://www.susanstars.com/howto/make_aline.php (both of these two are stretchy skirts)
http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=101 (waaaay to complicated, a wrap skirt is beyond me just yet, but maybe one day)
http://angrychicken.typepad.com/angry_chicken/2008/07/5-minute-skirt.html (bit too long and flowy)
http://www.sewmamasew.com/store/media/blog/SMSSkirt.pdf (Didn't want to make an elasticated skirt as I knew I was short on fabric)
http://www.isew.co.uk/sewing_techniques/skirt_block-c-00746.htm (Yes! This is the one!)

The tutorial I used from isew, made the pattern incredibly easy to create. I decided I wanted to make the skirt around knee length as I didn't want anything either too long or too short. Plus I only had a metre of fabric to use. One thing I will say to inexperienced sewing people is that if you are going to make a garment that has lines on it get more fabric than you think you will need or you are going to be tearing your hair out! And yes my fabric had stripes in it. Do you remember this?

This one of the fabrics I bought at the Sewing for Pleasure show in March. I wanted to make the black floral print go horizontally round the skirt, but due to fabric constraints I had to make it go vertically. I also wanted to put the giant rickrack several inches up the skirt as a kind of divider. Again this didn't happen due to fabric constraints. I barely managed to get enough fabric to make a knee length skirt, and had to chop the bottom 1" off the pattern piece in order to fit it onto the fabric whilst lining up the two pattern pieces. (Why didn't I know that plain fabric is much easier to sew with????) In order to lengthen my skirt I used the rickrack on the bottom hem. I think it worked brilliantly. Here is my finished skirt in all it's teal, grey and black glory.

I am so pleased with my first endeavour into skirt making. I even lined it with white cotton, which really helps with the way the skirt hangs.

I inserted a zipper using this tutorial, and all the following in sequence, which was pretty useful.

I fully intend to add a hook and eye to the top of the zipper, to neaten up the edges and also to reduce the strain on the top of the zipper. The seams that got ripped when inserting the zipper have got a little bashed up, but I'm sure after the first wash and press, they will be fine. Until then, its going to be covered by my linen shirt (shh, don't tell the ironing police). Where the rickrack met at the side of the skirt got a bit messy, so I just tucked it up inside the skirt and hand stitched in place. The gap, really isn't that noticeable and is better than the weird overlapping waves that were there before.

I managed to get the stripes to line up, and I really like the way a triangle of spots is made along the sides of the skirt.

I love the way the rickrack prettifies the whole thing, and that it came about through pure necessity. I was going to use that rickrack no matter what!

And yes, the fabric does match the feature wall of our lounge. That colour has seeped into my subconscious and leaps into a lot of my purchases at the moment.

I think that the necessary changes to the way I envisaged this skirt, have made it work better than I anticipated. I think the floral pattern and the spotted panel going vertically up the skirt is much more striking, unusual and slimming. The way the stripes meet up at the seams gives a great chevron effect, which wouldn't work as well with the floral pattern meeting up, and the rickrack on the hem just looks plain fabulous.

Making the pattern from my own measurements has also ensured that I have an incredibly comfortable skirt that sits on hips and doesn't cut into my waist. This is a major requirement in my life because all of my pain in situated in my pelvis and abdomen. Clothes that press on my waist and stomach cause me increased pain. This skirt will be great for sitting down at dinner tables and will probably be a firm favorite for travelling in, because sometimes even elasticated waists are too tight.

I hope to use this same pattern to make another similar skirt from the other fabric I bought at the NEC. I want to get that finished over the next few weeks, in time to be worn on my holidays. Until then I think this new skirt is going to worn to death. Comfort and style in an invidual fabric, what more could a girl want?

Stained Glass Patchwork Template

My patchwork class may have finished for the Summer, but I am still slowly working on finishing all the blocks I have started. This weekend I made the most the nice weather and sat in the garden while I finished stitching on my bias binding, for my stained glass patchwork block.

I have really enjoyed working on this block. I love stained glass windows, so copying the principles in fabric really appealed to me. When we were first given this block to do, I had just watched a program on the BBC called MasterCrafts. This episode was all about three novices being given 6 weeks tuition on making stained glass, so this program really inspired me.

The design I came up with, for my block, was inspired by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who is a bit of a design hero of mine. I love his beautiful clear organic lines and use of nature for inspiration. One of his most famous motifs is the rose, which is often only very reminiscent of an actual flower. Inspired by his rose, I made my own and this is the design I came up with.

Once I had my template design I worked out the colours I wanted to use, from my fabrics. I coloured in the template to show the fabric placement I wanted. As you can see, the colours are a bit garish, but you get the idea.

By the way, if you want to download this free stained glass patchwork template I made, you can get the template here. The template was sized to fit my 12" finished block. It does not have all the lines I used for the bias binding, but it does give you a template for the design. Feel free to use it as you wish, though I would be grateful if you could acknowledge the source of the design in any blog posts.  In addition you can find a group on Flickr where you can share photos of the product of your work, here.

You may also be interested to know, I used Inkscape, a piece of open source design software, to create this template. If you want to try your hand at design, I recommend this free software, as it does all the things I need for creating patterns. There is even a free clip art library available on the site.

Once I had cut out my fabric, based on the template and tacked it down onto the backing fabric, I used pre-made bias binding, to fix it all together. I tried to make my own binding but it all went horribly wrong. I don't think I should have started my experimentations into bias binding with the 1/4"size as it is just too fiddly. I will give it another try after doing some larger sizes first. Mind you, I've got lots of the pre-made stuff to use up before that becomes necessary.

So here is my completed Charles Rennie Mackintosh inspired rose stained glass patchwork, in all its finished glory. I'm pretty pleased with it - what do you think?

How convenient was it, that my fabrics matched the design I wanted to do so well? Maybe it was the tiny little roses on the green fabric that inspired my subconscious! There are an awful lot of flowers in my quilt fabrics.

Project Bag

Welcome to the next exciting installment of CraftyCripple's Bag Blogging Bonanza. As I may have hinted at in my last post, I have made a lovely little dolly bag to sit inside my new handbag. I used some of my favorite fabric that I used for my notions purse. This Heather Bailey fabric has always made me smile and it just happens to match the colour scheme of my new bag woohoo! Lucky me, I also had the foresight to buy some extra fabric when I had the chance.

I wanted to have a cylindrical dolly bag as a project bag as it seems to make sense for circular knitting needles that coil round naturally, to sit against a round bag side.

I used a saucepan lid to draw the shape I wanted and then measured the circumference to obtain the size for the bag sides. I also measured the height of the handbag in which it was to sit for the height of the sides. As you can see below, this seemed to work as it fits inside my new bag very nicely.

I'm so pleased with how well the colours work together. With the project bag and the Bag Swapper, I use for all my bags, pushed into the corners of the bag there is still lots of room for other useful items to be carried.

I used fairly heavy weight fusible interface on both the exterior and the lining fabric which means the bag stands up pretty well on its own. This is useful for keeping the yarn in the bag on the floor, or table while knitting to keep it safe and clean.

This was one of the first times I had sewed a straight edge to a curve and it shows. I did not do the best job and my maths was a little awry, so the circumference of the base and the sides did not match exactly. This meant a bit of fudging which leaves the bottom with something to be desired. I think next time I do a circular based bag, I'll actually do some proper maths rather than just fudging things. Its not like I don't know how to do the maths, I was just being lazy.

As you can see, the base isn't exactly perfectly round. But I rarely look at the bottom of bag, as I might have mentioned my last post uh-hem. It is round enough for me and it does it's job. I left 1" gaps on the exterior fabric, around 1.5" from the top of the bag, on each side hem. Once the bag was all put together I sewed exterior and lining together round the circumference of the bag at the top and bottom of those gaps to form the casing for the cords.

I used some random cord I bought for piping and cut a couple of pieces to pull the the top of the bag together. I may buy some nicer cord one day, but for now, this works.

All in all, I am pretty pleased with my new (slightly wonky) project bag. I've still got some of this fabric left, I wonder if I can find a pattern for a sun hat?

Gorgeous Fabric

One of the things that has helped me get back on my feet again, after my emotional slump, has been the change in weather. The sun has a great effect on me. It always makes me smile when it comes out of hiding. I think having a sun shortage over the last 12 months has not helped my state of mind at all. Along with the sun has come a couple of nice days out with my friend Linda.

Linda is my partner in spending crime. We are a very bad influence on each other as we both adore fabric and yarn. Linda has really helped inspire me on my sewing adventures and some of the clothes she has made herself and her family, in the time I have known her, have me in awe. I've learnt a lot from just shopping with her and one of our latest excursions was to IKEA. I haven't been there in years as it requires a car to get to our nearest store. My other half HATES IKEA with a passion, so I haven't been able to persuade him that he might like a little jaunt up the motorway. I haven't been to IKEA since I started sewing, so I did not even think of it as a source of fabric inspiration. I was stunned by the range of furnishing weight fabric on offer in the store and the low price of it, especially when the standard of it was taken into account. There were some amazingly bright and beautiful fabrics but I fell head over heels with one fabric. It is this one:

It just screams Spring at me and I had to have some. I only bought a metre of the fabric but it had good width so I knew I would probably be able to get a bag out of it. And so I did. I spent two days with my nose to the sewing machine and came up with this.

This bag is enormous! It is a carpet bag style frame that keeps the top either open or closed, which is handy when rummaging around in its depths.

I used fusible fleece interface on the exterior fabric to give the bag structure and smooth out any edges. There is boning on the inside seams on either end of of the bag, which enables it to stand up on it's own. I used standard sew in interfacing on the lining of the bag, as the lining is just regular dress making weight cotton. I love the fresh colour of the lining and when the bag is open it makes me think of a yawning frog!

I got the fleece interface and the bag frame from U-Handbag. I cannot recommend this site enough. I ordered the fleece mid-afternoon and it arrived the next morning. Superb service! The other things I also got from this site were the plastic canvas to strengthen the base of the bag, the sliding buckle, clips, and rectangular rings. I bought the domed feet from Bags of Handles. I didn't buy all these items at the same time but they all came together brilliantly with this bag.

I decided with this bag to make two different handle types. The first would be fixed permanently to the bag and would be long enough to hold in the hand. These handles are also used to open and close the bag frame. The second handle is an adjustable strap that can be removed using clips. I made the strap by wrapping the fabric round some cotton webbing. This has given the strap strength and some padding. I can wear the bag from the shoulder or as a messenger style bag.

Aren't these clips and rectangular rings pretty?

I don't have much practice at adding feet to the base of handbags and unfortunately mine were a bit wonky and didn't line up with the marks I made - ooops!

Yup those dots were made in ink - lesson learnt! My salvation lies in the location of said feet - on the bottom.

The area of this bag I am most proud of is the lining. There was much sweating and cursing over the pockets I put in the bag, but they have worked brilliantly. It was worth all the hassle. I put in my first lining pocket in this bag using the brilliant (as always) Lisa Lam's tutorial. Once again I am sending you to U-Handbag - this site is the beginner bag maker's best friend.

Isn't it neat? I am very proud of this pocket. I am getting much better at zippers. I may actually try and put one in a skirt some time ;-) I decided to make this pocket waterproof. I did this using vinyl interfacing. It is brilliant if scary when you iron plastic onto fabric. I am so impressed with how this product works. It means I don't worry about a bottle of water leaking over my bag, or make up staining the lining. The pocket is quite shallow, but it is long and does take a 500ml bottle of water.

I decided to use the exterior fabric for this pocket as I knew it would be taking a greater weight than the rest of the lining. On the other side of the bag, I put in elastic topped pockets. These are designed to take my iPod Touch, mobile phone and purse.

I cannot begin to describe how nice it is to actually be able to find my purse in this bag! I had much fun with the elastic pulling the fabric out of shape. It was my first experience of sewing with it, since I made a petticoat at school. I have learnt several more lessons about using this stuff, the main one of which is to hold everything tight as you sew or it all runches up. I also put a tab with a clip on this part of the bag. This clip is for my keys which can also sit in a pocket along with my other stuff.

I have now used my bag for a couple of days out and when it is full it is quite heavy and cumbersome but I can find everything I want to instantly. It holds everything I want to for a day out and there is still room for a book or magazine as well, plus some odd small bits of shopping.

I am so happy with my bag, and it is perfect for the Spring, and hopefully into the Summer as well. I plan on taking it away on holiday with me as I think it will be perfect for days at the beach, especially with that waterproof pocket. The only thing missing now is the project bag to fit inside to hold my knitting ....... or is it? Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of CraftyCripple's Bag Blogging Bonanza!

Self Justification

I have been gone rather a long time haven't I? What started as a physical problem with our boiler being broken went on to become a bit of a mental melt down. Being cold all the time for several weeks did not help my pain levels or my sanity.

I don't normally talk about my health problems a lot on this blog, because this is a space where I get to talk about pretty things and I don't really want to share the day to day grind of being in constant pain with the whole world. However in this instance I want to talk about it.

On the whole I deal pretty well with my physical limitations. I accept that I can't do all the things I want to do, when I want to do them, or how. I accept that I am not going to magically get better any time soon. I accept that some days all I will want to do is lie on the sofa whimpering - but sometimes I want to rail at the universe waiving my fist crying "why me?" in a dramatic fashion.

One thing I learnt early on with dealing with having endo is that I won't be ok all the time. I can't hope for that, it isn't realistic to expect to handle pain in a positive way all the time. I have come to accept that every 18-24 months I will have a bit of mental meltdown where I weep and wail and bemoan my fate. When it is hard to motivate myself, and I watch far too much tv and read escapist fiction (more than usual) and generally avoid thinking too hard about my life. Then I stop, reassess and pick myself up again, and start taking steps towards being positive about my life again. I don't like being down and pitiful but I know that it is a normal state of affairs when you are physically limited and have so little control over what you are capable of doing.

I wanted to talk about it here because sometimes I skate over my physical problems (despite the name of my blog) and I may seem to be reasonably happy and cheerful most of the time. The thing is, having endometriosis is not pretty, it is by turns upsetting, painful, exhausting and messy. Don't think because I don't talk about my problems on my blog that I don't have any. I wouldn't want to give a false impression about what life is like with a disability. It is really really hard. So if you know anyone who has an illness or disability don't think for one minute that the smile they are giving you is the full story. Yes, they are pleased to see you and are happy to be distracted from whatever pain they are in. But if they are anything like me, they will probably pay a price, be it physical or mental, for forgetting for a while about what hurts. So don't forget that you will never the know the full story, because you can never understand exactly how hard it was to get out of bed this morning. We don't want your pity, but we do need your understanding if we sometimes seem cranky even if you can't see a reason for it, especially if you don't normally get to see the full picture. Its just life getting the better of us for a while.

So now I have got over my biannual meltdown I have picked myself up and started to create again. I didn't stop crafting while I was gone, I just slowed down quite a lot. So over this week I should have some things to show you, I bet you didn't even notice I was gone did you and all this self justification is wildly misplaced on a craft blog. Normal service will be resumed shortly (I promise).

Completed Hawaiian Cushion

A few weeks ago I told you about my Hawaiian Quilt. Well, I got up this morning at the crack of dawn (thanks to my adoring pet cat wanting my company) and decided that as the sun was out at the front of the house I would enjoy the sun and sit in it and sew something. That something was the cushion using my Hawaiian Quilt block that I showed you.

This cushion was made according to the instructions given by my patchwork teacher, as she wants us to learn how to put in zips. If I hadn't been told to make it this way, I probably would have just made an envelope cushion cover (cos I've made those before).

I am well aware that this cushion is far from perfect, because essentially I ran out of energy and just wanted to get it done. However I am pretty proud of it none the less.

The cushion front is only 13" square and I had a 14" zip, so acting on advice received I sewed back and forth across the end of the zip and chopped off a couple of inches. It seems to have worked ok so I shall remember this technique!

I am pretty pleased that my zip seems to be square to the edges of the cushion and the zip is all neatly hidden away. I managed to sew up really close to the zip using my zipper foot.

I hope that this isn't too close, will the fabric catch in the teeth?. I think it is ok. Its not like I will be using the zipper very often. I like this technique for hiding the zip away. It looks so much neater than having it on display.

I wish I had been able to face doing piping for this cushion as I think it would have really made the finished cushion look professional, but I knew I wouldn't get the cushion finished any time soon, if I stopped to make piping. The piping would have finished me off!

I think maybe piping would have held the seams a bit more rigid and straight. I just used toy stuffing as I didn't have a cushion pad that would fit my tiny cushion, but it seems to have worked ok.

The finished cushion may not be great but it has taught me a lot of different skills, not the least of which is hand quilting and adding zips. These are pretty important skills, the rest will come with practice.

The sun came out.

I was so pleased, after yesterday's rant about the cold, that the sun came out today. I am currently sitting in my study with the sun shining on my back. Ah sweet sweet warmth. One of the many great things about our house is that it faces East. This means that the front of the house has sun all morning and the back has it all afternoon. In Winter this means that you can follow the sun around the house to stay warm (providing it ever appears). In the Summer you can follow the shade around the house to keep cool. We also have very large windows to capture all the light when it is grey and cold, and then to open up wide when it gets hot. Today even though we have no boiler I am relatively warm sat in my study typing this up.

Because of the unexpected sun, I am very pleased report some actual crafting has taken place - yippeee! I took the opportunity to play with some beads. I combined some beads I have had for a little while, with some of those that got bought at the NEC. Do you remember these?

When I bought them I had no idea what I was going to do with them because they didn't seem to "go" with anything I already had. So I thought I would start out by using a couple of the beads to make a pair of basic earrings. When I had finished I took another peek in my big box of beading goodies and found this amazing stone.

I fell in love with this pink stone when it first arrived in Mary Clare. There were some rectangular ones as well, but I love this tear drop shape and had to buy it immediately with no thought at all about what it would go with. I was glad I did, because the rest got snapped up almost immediately.

I later bought the marble type stones which have a very neutral colour to them but have a warmth that mean they can go with the pink. I put all these stones together with the purple ones from the NEC and added some tiny pearl seed beads and the result was this:

I started off fixing the main necklace to the pendant part just through the tiny loop at the top of the pendant.

This twisted the necklace quite a lot and I decided that it was going to drive me nuts, so I inserted a split ring to allow the junction to move around a bit more freely. I think this solution worked.

It certainly looks more elegant. I think I am starting to get the hang of this type of necklace, though I am sure I will do lots more just to improve my techniques and my eye. I know that others may have done much better things with the same stones, but I am satisfied with what I have at the moment.

I am really enjoying building up my collection of home crafted jewellery. I can make jewellery that doesn't cost a fortune which means I can wear it every day. I don't fret about things getting a bit bashed because if it does, I'll just make a new one. It also means I get to wear things that look exactly as I pictured, rather than settling for something that kind of looks like the image I had in my head that I found in a shop. I stopped buying costume jewellery a long time ago, because I had nice jewellery given to me over the years and felt that I should wear that. However, I don't wear the nice stuff for every day because that diminishes how special it makes me feel. The home crafted stuff fills the gap I have created for myself. It also lets me play with pretty things!

Hopefully the sun will continue to shine and I will have other things to show you.

I am cold and being rubbish about it.

You may have noticed a dearth of posting this last week. That is because I am cold and I am being rubbish about it. Basically as soon as the lovely warm Spring weather we had being enjoying disappeared, our boiler packed up. So now it is raining and grey and chilly, we have no heat. We have an electric shower, and a gas fire in the living room and a VERY old electric heater that is keeping our bedroom toasty but that is IT. The gas fire was never designed to be the sole source of heat for the lounge and while it does take the chill off, I'm still having to rely on blankets.

While most people might gripe a bit and then carry on as normal, I am being rubbish. My excuse is that I am at home nearly all the time and when I am cold, my pain is worse. So I am spending lots of time in my bedroom with my old electric heater on full blast, covered in a blanket and reading - LOTS. I am not crafting, because my hands feel stiffer somehow in the cooler air. I am sure that is psychological and I am being rubbish but I just don't feel very crafty. It doesn't help that the tunic I am knitting at the moment is in Rowan Summer Tweed, a lovely silk and cotton mix yarn that is in a lovely light purple colour that feels all summery. I'm not feeling very summery at the moment.... hence no knitting in bed.

However I am still reading all my favorite blogs because I can do that on my bed tucked up and warm on my iPod. So I am saving all my favorite ideas to my evernote program. Evernote is a great tool for keeping notes on things from the internet. I can email links to evernote as I am reading my favorite blogs. Then when I feel the urge to blitz my links I can add them to my Tumblr page. Tumblr really helps me find the tutorials I vaguely remember from months ago. It also is a good place to go when I have nothing pushing at my brain to get made. It is full of all the things that I have found inspiring and informative on my journey round the net. So while I am not blogging crafty things, please check out my Tumblr page and see if any of the things that inspire me, get you itching to craft as well.

We are scheduled to get our new boiler next Thursday so hopefully in a week or so normal blogging service will resume. It may be earlier if the sun comes out enough to heat the house for an hour or so, so keep your eyes peeled for a glimmer of sun through the clouds.

Marie Curie Cancer Care Tea Party

I recently received an email from a nice man at Marie Curie Cancer Care. For some reason he thought my blog might have a wide audience (snort) of people who knit or crochet. Even though I know there aren't many of you out there, this is a good cause and I said I would pass on the information he sent me.

Basically, Marie Curie Cancer Care are running a competition to design a tea cosy. The competition is being run in conjunction with Simply Knitting Magazing and Cath Kidston. The tea cosy design is to be inspired by the Marie Curie Cancer Care's Blooming Great Tea Party which asks people to get together and host a tea party anytime from June 12 to July 12 to help raise funds for the charity.

The good folks at Simply Knitting Magazine have provided two basic tea cosy patterns (one knit, one crochet) as a starting point for your design and should fit a standard six cup tea pot. You can either adapt the basic patterns provided, or design your own from scratch if you prefer.

To make a winning tea cosy, find out all you need to know about the Blooming Great Tea Party and to download an entry form go to www.mariecurie.org.uk/teaparty. The competition will be judged by Cath Kidston, Simply Knitting and Marie Curie Cancer Care, based on entries to the following categories:

• Best Tea Party Cosy
• Best Creative Cosy

There will be a winner and two runners-up selected for each category, and the prizes will be selection packs of Cath Kidston and knitting goodies. The competition will close on 31/08/2010, any entries received after this date will not be entered into the competition. All tea cosy entries must be accompanied by an entry form, available from www.mariecurie.org.uk/teaparty or call 08700 340 040 Entries should be sent with completed entry form to:

FREEPOST RSCK-ECXB-LBSS
Marie Curie Cancer Care Knitting Competition
PO Box 621
Wetherby Rd
York
YO26 0EX

I feel a bit ashamed because I know I probably won't be doing anything related to this post - one because I don't drink tea and don't get the whole "tea party" thing and two because I don't like to commit to things I am pretty sure I won't be able to achieve. However, my contribution is posting the information on my blog. If one person decides to host a tea party after reading the above blurb, then that has to be my contribution.

Please let me know if anyone decides to enter a design or hold a tea party. Otherwise I will feel that this post was typed in vain!